Meeting of Worlds
Sicily through the Ages with Vassar Alums

Join Vassar Alums on a special trip to Sicily. The Mediterranean island lays at the crossroads of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. From earliest recorded history it has been a place of mixing, meeting, intermingling, of both violent conquest and peaceful absorption of newly arrived peoples crisscrossing the seas or descending from the north. In its mores and monuments, its language and literature, its music, religious traditions, and cuisine, and in the remarkable art and architectural styles in evidence over the centuries, Sicily represents one of the richest and most diverse cultural landscapes anywhere in Europe.

Vassar alums and Loeb supporters will embark on an 11-day, 10-night tour of this endlessly fascinating island. We’ll also be joined by Prof. Liz Lastra and four Vassar students, who will share their research following a six-week course on Art and Exchange in Medieval Sicily. They will help to highlight Palermo’s rich history and the ways in which its monuments reflected the ambitions and priorities of various patrons and audiences: from powerful queens and kings to cloistered monks to transitory pilgrims and merchants. This trip features luxury lodging, fine dining, first-rate guides, with plenty of free time for shopping, relaxing, or further sight-seeing, in one of the most beautiful and fascinating—and in many cases, least-visited—parts of the Mediterranean World.